Serena Williams Retains Her US Open Title

Serena Williams (31), has once again successfully defended her US Open title, by beating the Belarusian's Victoria Azarenka, 7 - 5, 6 - 7 (6 - 8), 6 -1,
amid the gusty wind that was so persistent in the Arthur Ashe stadium at the Flushing Meadows, New York on Sunday.

Serena Williams US Open Champion

 

The thrilling match was a repeat performance of last year's final between the American, Serena, the women's world number one tennis player and the Belarusian's Victoria Azarenka (24), the world number two.
          
This 5th US Open winning brings Williams total to 17 Grand Slams, one behind Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, five behind Steffi Graf's 22 and most of all seven behind Margaret Court's 24 titles.

In the first set of the match, Serena Williams, was down 4 - 5 and was serving to level the score, but she committed double fault and also foot fault, but being an experienced and determined champion, she willed herself back into contention and won the next three games and the set at 7 - 5.

The second set began very well for Williams, as she raced to a 4 - 1 lead.
Serena was not only fighting against her opponent, but she was handling the wind worse than Azarenka. The wind kept on blowing her light skirt up as she was struggling to hold it down and was frustrated with the wind.

She was so frustrated with the wind that she said, "I can't play in this wind''
and after losing her big lead, she smashed her racket in anger. She eventually lost the second set at 6 - 7 (6 - 8). Credit to Azarenka for fighting back so hard and won the set from 1 - 4 down.

At the ending part of the second set, Williams regained her composture and confidence and dorminated the third set from start to finish. She just over -ran the Belarusian at 6 - 1.

After the match the obviously over joyed Serena Williams, said of Azarenka
"Vika's such a great opponent, such a great fighter and that's why she's been able to win multiple Grand Slams. That's why it was never over until match point."

Victoria Azarenka, who looked very dejected and sad at the press conference after the match said, ''It is a tough loss, but to be in the final and play against the best player, who deserves to win today, it's incredible. I gave it all today. We showed our hearts. We fought hard."

"It's incredible what she is achieving, she 's playing definitely her best tennis right now. It really shows how focused and how composed and how much she can raise the level,'' she added.

Victoria Azarenka was correct, even Serena herself said this summer that she is playing her best tennis. And there is no doubt that she is loving it and as she told Andy Roddick, (Foxsports) the former US open champion, that she is now playing for record and for fun. I wish her all the best in her goal to break records in women tennis.

Both players had extra summer bonus added to their prize money, the finalist Azarenka had $250,000 added to her prize money of $1.3m making it a total of $1.550,000 and the champion Serena got $1m bonus added to her prize money of $2.6m bringing the total to $3.6m.